Fade to Grey (Book 2): Darkness Ascending (55 page)

“What does it look like to you?” I asked Michelle as I
scanned the yard of our supposedly abandoned farmhouse through binoculars.

She studied the scene through her own pair of
binoculars, and then dictated a sarcastic reply. “Well, it’s obviously not
abandoned any more.”

There were two vehicles pulled into the front yard. One
of them—a beige sedan with several large dents on the passenger side—appeared
to be stuck in the soupy ground of the front yard. The other vehicle, a plum
colored crossover between an SUV and a station wagon, was attached to the sedan
with a yellow tow strap. Judging from the mud splattering evident on both
vehicles, it looked like an unsuccessful attempt had been made to dislodge the
car from the saturated ground.

“What do you think? Should we go up and introduce
ourselves . . . or try and find another place to put in?” Michelle asked.

“Upstream from here you run into a lot of sandbars and
shallow areas. Even with the recent rain I don’t think I’d be willing to risk
it. I know for a fact that we can make it to the big lakes from this point.”

“What about downstream from here?” Michelle asked.
“Are there any other places we can put in safely?”

“Sure, we can probably get to the creek at a lot of
different points, but we’d be driving through muddy fields to get there, and
then we’d have no place to leave the truck out of the way of prying eyes.” I
shifted my gaze to the medium sized barn that split the distance between the
farmhouse and the creek.

“So what do you think . . . just drive right up and
walk in the front door?”

“No, I still think we have to play it a little safe.
But that doesn’t mean we can’t try and be nice,” I said.

“What do you have in mind?” Michelle asked.

“Let’s cut the distance to about fifty yards, and then
we’ll beep the horn. If we can get their attention, I’ll walk up to the house
while you cover me. If we can establish some type of contact, maybe we can be
the first to offer the olive branch and winch out their car.”

“Just so you know, Eric, I’m getting really tired of
biting back the words ‘be careful’ every day.”

My lips creased in a gentle smile. “You let one slip
out last night, but I know what you mean. I think we’ve had more than our share
of bad luck lately, so maybe we’ll slide by with some good luck for a change.
Besides, I have to believe that there are still a lot of good people left in
the world.”

“I just hope they’re in the farmhouse instead of a
bunch of crack head bikers.”

“I’m pretty sure bikers don’t drive plum colored
station wagons.”

She hesitated for a second, and then gripped her rifle
determinedly. I watched as her nose dropped slightly and turned toward me. “I’m
getting at least one more in . . . be careful,” Michelle said.

I nodded and shifted the truck into gear, heading down
the driveway for a few seconds until I came to my stopping point. Two long
beeps followed by a dual series of “shave and a haircut” melodies blasted from
the horn. Michelle watched through her binoculars for any sign of a reply.

“Top floor—one of the curtains moved,” Michelle
whispered.

“Keep watching.”

Another minute passed with no contact, so I laid on
the horn a few more times. This time we both saw the upstairs curtain flutter.
A short time after that, the front door cracked open, revealing a hand waving a
stick. The end of the stick was drooping with a makeshift white flag. I turned
quickly and scanned the interior of the truck, locating just about every color
under the sun except white.

“I guess we’re doing this without a flag of our own.
Got your radio ready to go?” I asked.

Michelle nodded as she continued to stare through her binoculars.
The radios in question were a pair of GMRS walkie-talkies that we had taken
with us in lieu of the Fish and Wildlife radios. All of the repeater towers
around Devil’s Lake were grid powered with very limited battery backup, so the
Fish and Wildlife radios wouldn’t really give us any extra range. As it was, we
should be good to go with the ones we had chosen out to at least a mile or
more—possibly substantially more over the flat terrain up here. Plus, both were
newer models with access to dozens of different privacy codes for security, and
both also came with voice operated microphones that would plug into our noise
protection headsets. They weren’t as crisp and clear as the ones we left behind,
but they worked.

“Let’s assume that they also have binoculars looking
at us, so ‘soft cover’ for now . . . no pointing muzzles at them if we don’t
have to, OK?”

Michelle mumbled something noncommittal, and then
said, “If things turn to crap, you might be better off to run toward the sedan
for cover . . . just some food for thought.”

“I’m really praying it doesn’t come that,” I said as I
stepped out of the truck, hesitating for a moment in indecision. Leaning across
the center section of the bench seat was my AR, as well as the silenced Ruger
10/22. Behind the seat were a pair of 12 gauge shotguns—my M2 and Michelle’s
Remington 870. After another glance towards the house, I left them all there.
The familiar heft of the CZ 9mm rode in my drop leg holster, and I had six
additional magazines—two of them positioned for quick reload—attached to my
belt. I left the door to the truck open and waved to the house. In response,
the white flag waved again. I did my best to approach in a casual,
nonthreatening way, stopping when I was near the stuck vehicles in the front
yard.

“Hello,” I shouted towards the house.

The flag waving arm withdrew into the doorway, and I
felt my hackles beginning to rise for a moment, but they settled when the door
opened and revealed the figure of an elderly man . . . his right hand still
clutching the improvised white flag. His left arm was completely gone. From the
way the sleeve on his flannel shirt had been rolled up, it didn’t come across
to me as a recent injury.

“Can I help you?” The old man’s voice was weak and
gravelly. I immediately got the impression that he had spent the last several
decades chain smoking unfiltered cigarettes.

“Well maybe we can help each other,” I replied. “It
looks like you’re stuck in the mud. I’ve got a winch on the front of my truck.”

He nodded, “That would be right nice of you, but
before we get all warm and fuzzy, why don’t you tell me why you’re on my property.”

“This is an abandoned farm. It’s been that way for at
least a dozen years.”

“Abandoned doesn’t mean un-owned. My granddad tilled
the land here in the 1800s, and I was born about a quarter mile that direction the
same year the Jap’s bombed Pearl Harbor,” he pointed to his right over the
field. “My mama was working in the crops when I decided to show up. It’s her
blood, and much of my own over the years, that’s soaked into this soil. So,
young man, you’re correct in that nobody has lived here for a while, but this
farm has been in my family for a very long time, and we’re still the owners.”

Michelle's voice cut through my headset.
“Is
everything OK? I can’t hear what he’s saying.”

“Yeah, I think so, but hold on,”
I muttered.

“Well sir, I apologize if this is your farm. I’ve been
driving past here for several years, and I guess I just figured that no one had
any interest in this place. Do you mind if I come in for a minute and maybe we
can figure out a way to help each other?”

“What about your friend in the truck?”

“I think they can stay in the truck for now.”

The old man’s head nodded slowly. “Alright . . . I
ain’t never turned away someone who was in need, and I don’t suppose I’ll start
now, so come on in—but I’ll ask you to leave that pea shooter in its holster.”

I nodded and walk up to the porch. There were three
weather and termite eaten steps that led up to the rickety deck, and I extended
my hand in greeting as I crested step number two. His hand met mine, and he
spoke first. “Tate’s my name . . . Jonathan Tate. Most folks just call me
Tater.” His eyes dropped down to the patches on my jacket. “You a law man?”

“Yes sir,” I replied, “North Dakota Wildlife Officer
Eric Coleman.”

“Well Officer Coleman, I don’t suppose you know
anything about chimneys, do you?” Tater held the door open and I stepped inside
to the heavy scent—and sight—of wood smoke.

“Not too much, but if I had to make a guess, I’d say
yours is blocked up.”

“I’d imagine that twenty-some years of birds would
probably do that,” he replied.

The inside of the old farmhouse was decorated with
peeling wallpaper and falling chunks of plaster. Several of the walls had been
defaced with crude graffiti, and at least a decades’ worth of cobwebs filled
every corner. Surprisingly, all the windows that I could see were still intact.
I followed Tater through the short breezeway and into the living room; the
smoky haze getting thicker with each of my steps. The source of the smoke was a
rusty black behemoth that, to my eyes, had more than just a passing resemblance
to something you might find in the debris field of an old fashioned train
wreck.

Tater coughed as he pointed at the Frankenstein
contraption. “My daddy built that monster out of parts from an old boiler system
they tore out of the hog processing plant that burnt down in Fargo back in the
fifties. It ain’t pretty, but when she gets going, you lose your eyebrows just
filling her up.”

My eyes followed the heavy cast iron pipe from the
stove to where it angled into a mortared shut hole in the bricks several feet
above the original fireplace opening.

Tater stepped forward and swung open the loading gate
on the side of the rectangular heater—a bellow of grayish-white smoke oozed out
to join its brethren drifting in the air. “I was able to shine a light from
here, and outside of a few dust bunnies, the angled vent pipe is clear . . . so
whatever is blocking the smoke has got to be in the chimney proper.”

A squeak behind me drew my attention, and I turned
toward the stairway that led to the second floor. Several sets of dark eyes
stared back at me from between the spindles of the banister. Tater followed my
gaze, and then cleared his throat. “You boys stop fooling around on them
stairs. I told you they ain’t safe to play around. Now go get your mama and
bring her down here for a minute.” The dark eyes blinked, but didn’t move.

“Go on now . . . fetch your mama. Tell her it’s OK to
come down.”

Three pairs of feet thumped up the stairway, propelled
by Tater’s gruff demeanor. He turned to look at me, pausing momentarily to load
and light a cigarette one handedly between a pair of lips that sported a
noticeable divot from the decade’s long frequency of abuse.

“Them kid’s mama— little Spanish lady—was working as
my caretaker from the VA when all this stuff started happenin.’ She ain’t got
no family ‘asides her kids, at least none in this country, so when I headed for
the farmhouse, she tagged along. Weren’t nowhere else to go anyhow. We got out
of the city just in time I reckon. Been here a little over a week now.” He
turned back towards the stove. “That warm weather we’ve been having made me
lazy, and I didn’t even think we’d need to light the ol’ gal, but I hate to see
them kids a-shiverin’ in their coats all night long.”

A small pile of kindling was stacked on the floor near
the stove, and several gatherings of wood chips and splinters surrounded a
squat, basketball sized tree cross section that sported the upright angle of an
embedded hatchet.

“Are you going to have enough fuel to keep this
burning?” I asked.

“The barn, one side of it anyhow, is loaded with slab
wood that came from a sawmill,” his wrinkled face puffed another blast of
cigarette smoke as he studied me, “probably long before you were born. There’s maybe
‘nuff in there for two winters, I’d imagine. I brought me a chainsaw and five
gallons of gas so I can cut it to length.” Tater noticed my sideways glance at
his missing arm and chuckled. “Don’t you worry none . . . I’ve learned to do
with one what many folks can’t do with two.”